Know When to Quit

This morning I was torn between a nice long, intense bike ride on my Opus or a photography journey on my Fuji. I chose a photography ride since it is Sunday and the trails would be packed with people. I had trouble deciding what to bring and I finally decided to bring a roll of 120 Tmax 100 and finish off the roll of Ilford 100 in my Minolta Autocord. I also decided to bring my Crown Graphic and two film holders for 4 large formats shots (just in case).

We left around 8:30 and Alex was going to go to Te Aro and work on her paper for Montreal. Off we go on out bikes and once we hit Sherbourne and Gerard we parted ways. On the corner I noticed a door the screamed photo. It was a colour shot so I did nothing about it and just kept heading south on Sherbourne. A few houses down from the door scene was this guy in his front yard with a huge orange , blue and green parrot on his shoulders. The parrot was filled with colour and it’s master’s face was filled with character. I thought dam, I have no colour film so I just kept riding. I turned onto Queen St East and headed for Parliament st. It sudden;y dawned on me that I had my digital Canon G11 and I could have taken both shots. Ok, bad start. I got to Cherry St and turned west towards the docks. Two lakers were at the docks so I stopped the bike and set up my Minolta with filter and lens hood, took a light reading and proceeded to compose and take a shot of the closest boat. I then looked at another shot of the two boats and cranked the film winder to take another. Then I saw I hadn’t set the proper f stop. I set everything up for the next shot and took it. The Minolta was done. I got on my bike to look far a shady spot so I could remove the exposed film and load the next roll. Pulling everything out of my knapsack, I found I had left the new roll on the table back home, arrrggghhh. Oh well, I have four shots with the Crown so off I go on my little route.

I headed towards the water again for a different view of the laker. This time I had the Toronto skyline and the boat in the same frame. One more I pulled the Minolta, the light meter, the G11, the film holders, the Crown and various filter cases from my knapsack. I set up the Crown and pulled the lens board to the infinity stops. I put a film holder into the back and composed through the viewfinder. I took two bracketed shots and started to put everything back. When I folded the Crown I noticed the focusing rails to be at the 8 foot mark. Ok, time to quit since nothing is going right. I sent a text message to Alex saying I was on my way to Te Aro and proceeded to slowly make my way there.]